Bipartisan bill would end government’s warrantless GPS tracking

The "GPS Act" holds location data to the same standard as a wiretap. If the …

Under a new bill dubbed the "GPS Act," law enforcement officials would no longer be able to obtain geolocation data from cellphones and GPS tracking devices without a warrant.

"I take the Fourth Amendment very seriously," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) at a press conference announcing the bill. "The law enforcement community is going too far" by using GPS trackers without a warrant, he said. "I happen to think that's wrong."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the lead Senate sponsor of the legislation, said that the US was trying to "race a technological Indy 500" with laws "out of the horse-and-buggy era." Providing clear rules and tighter privacy protections on geolocation data should benefit everyone, including law enforcement, he said—even if some investigators don't immediately see it that way.

Under the new bill, geolocation data obtained from devices like tablets, smartphones, and GPS trackers would be held to the same standard as a wiretap request; police can go to court, show probable cause, and obtain a warrant if they need access to such information. The current mishmash of court rulings about the legality of warrantless location tracking would be brought into uniformity, though the warrant standard would be relaxed in certain exceptional cases such as emergencies and 911 calls, among other situations.

Ron Wyden

In addition to laying down a warrant standard for obtaining location data, the law would also apply both to private companies and to individuals. Without a warrant, companies would need consent in order to share a user's geolocation data with anyone else. The bill would also criminalize those who stalk other people by inserting stealth apps on their phones or computers.

"This is what we're supposed to be doing: working in a bipartisan, bicameral way," said Chaffetz.

The GPS Act has already rounded up support from CCIA, a DC trade group that represents major tech players like Microsoft. "CCIA supports this long overdue reform that creates clear rules for a 21st century mobile wireless space marked so far by chaos and misunderstandings," said CEO Ed Black in a statement.

"It balances Americans' privacy protections with the legitimate needs of law enforcement, and maintains emergency exceptions. The bill creates a universal warrant standard for all geolocation information, regardless of how or when it is obtained, sending a clear signal to users that this information is protected."

74 Reader Comments

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

Glad to see this legislation speeding along w/ bipartisan support. I would be interested to know if there are any major opponents, and what their reasoning is. Would this type of legislation prompt a statement from police unions etc. as 'interfering' with police work? Or would they rather not have to deal with deciding when they do and don't need a warrant?

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

I'd be all for direct participation. But the reality is there are dozens and dozens of votes in both chambers each year. Expecting the citizenry to be reasonably able to keep up with everything and make informed votes just isn't reasonable. We're better off with elected representatives for now.

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

That would be a Democracy -- which the U.S. isn't, it's a Democratic Republic, there's a big difference. You wouldn't want a true democracy because it basically equates to an Ochlocracy or "mob rule".

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

I'd be all for direct participation. But the reality is there are dozens and dozens of votes in both chambers each year. Expecting the citizenry to be reasonably able to keep up with everything and make informed votes just isn't reasonable. We're better off with elected representatives for now.

To expand on this, people can't even make informed decisions on the 1-2 representatives they have to vote on every couple of years. How can you expect them to research and consider possibilities in written laws, on a much more consistent basis?

Then again, they could be at home on the couch watching CSPAN instead.

In regard to the article and this particular legislation, I think it is long overdue. I wonder if this will supersede the provision of the Patriot Act allowing federal law enforcement access to business records, which we suspect is used to access consumer's telephone records without warrants.

I was looking for a bill number (e.g. H.R.3021 or S.947), and found this hasn't yet been introduced. Chaffetz and Wyden intend to introduce the bill next week. A draft copy can be found here: http://www.govexec.com/pdfs/060711jm1.pdf

So, is this kinda what Senator Wyden was talking about regarding the abuses of the PATRIOT Act? Because it sounds like this would be connected to the Section 215 shenanigans that Ars reported on earlier. Well, as much as they could, since no one is allowed to say anything about it.

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

I'd be all for direct participation. But the reality is there are dozens and dozens of votes in both chambers each year. Expecting the citizenry to be reasonably able to keep up with everything and make informed votes just isn't reasonable. We're better off with elected representatives for now.

I agree we'd be better off with elected REPRESENTATIVES of the people who elected them. As it is now, we have career politicians who don't represent the people they're elected by very well because typically each race becomes a "Do you want a darker shade of gray or a lighter shade?" Mass media and the fear of blowing a race because of saying something that someone might take offense to has led to everyone wanting to be the guy who wears the business suit, but no tie, with the flag pin that has the groomed (but not overly so) hair and who is for families, a devout Christian, married, with a lot of children, etc. And is typically white.

What we need are term limits on our officials. Have a constant rotation of newly elected representatives. That way, you wouldn't have people worried about their career ending early because they dared to vote a way that will make them look back in their re-election ads. And if someone goes off the rails for their constituency, well they'll be out soon enough anyway and replaced by someone else.

You wouldn't have people who spend their entire lives keeping Congress in deadlock as a way to keep themselves getting paid after they deadlock any attempt to move on to something else and then run their re-election campaign on, "Congress hasn't done anything for you, elect me and I'll change things."

If those in Congress were there for one term each and being a politician was seen as a responsibility and not a job, a thing you do for your country and not just a way to make as much money as possible, then we'd have laws that make sense plus we'd have true representatives of the people.

Right now, all we did was replace royal families with political families and corporations (who are often breeding grounds for tomorrow's candidates).

Otherwise, I don't think our elected officials truly represent our interests. They should, in theory, because they wouldn't get re-elected if they don't represent us, right? Except they often do because of the reason you stated. Most don't have time to keep up with the issues or the politicians (aside from a sex scandal) Worse, most just hit, "Republican" or "Democrat" for their quickest solution and then go to their job. That's not what voting should be about because it's the same ignorance that you state would be bad for voting for laws, but now for the men and women meant to be voting for laws.

If the problem is people not paying attention to what they're voting on, well that's as true when they vote for their officials as when they vote for the laws directly. Perhaps if the laws were forced on most people, they might read up on them a little more than they do currently.

Imagine a world where politicians can't be career politicians at all, where voting ballots have no "Straight" option for all Republican or all Democrat, hell where we don't even have the two party system. Our government would be a lot better about doing what it is in the interests of its citizens.

But who's going to reform the process of Congress? Congress? Haha, they're not going to kill the golden goose...

Won't this be difficult to enforce inasmuch as govt must have GPS for mandated 911 purposes? Phones likely also broadcast some sort of GPS to govt satellites simply to determine time of day.

First, the article says there are exceptions stated in the bill for 911 and emergency situations.

Secondly, unless you have a satellite phone, your phone never broadcasts anything to a satellite. The time signal is broadcast from cellular phone towers. Now, your location can be approximately determined without GPS based on which local tower your phone is using. However I expect that data is covered in the bill, since it says "geolocation data," not specifically "GPS data."

"Under the new bill, geolocation data obtained from devices like tablets, smartphones, and GPS trackers would be held to the same standard as a wiretap request; police can go to court, show probable cause, and obtain a warrant if they need access to such information."

Exactly this! If the police cannot be held to the standard of being able to show probable cause BEFORE tracking our every movement, then we truly are living in a police state where they can track anyone at any time for no reason and with no oversight at all.

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

We now have the technology to be a true democracy, where every individual gets the right to vote on laws and how to solve issues; however, we are stuck with a Republic, or rather the illusion of democracy through representation. I find it funny that people say that democracy is the best form of government besides all the others that have been tried, except that we are no more a democracy than China is a communist country. It is in name only, which can purposely be deceiving. I do find that allowing the majority the right to vote on restricting the freedoms of the minority presents some issues, and it can be ever prevalent with prohibition in what is supposedly meant to be a free country. The mob still rule, though as two management teams who vie for you dollar so that they can shoulder you with debt for their dreams.

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

That would be a Democracy -- which the U.S. isn't, it's a Democratic Republic, there's a big difference. You wouldn't want a true democracy because it basically equates to an Ochlocracy or "mob rule".

OT: excellent bill, hope it gets passed.

Your point is well taken, but I believe that technically the United States is a "constitutional republic" with the addition of federal divisions of of sovereignty.

Much like cap-and-trade, if the value of the GPS data in use is worth more than the cost of the fines and fees to a corporation for sharing that data against the law, they'll continue to do what they do. This act would only hurt individuals writing apps and small businesses.

While I agree that Law Enforcement/Public Safety shouldn't have this info freely available to an unsuspecting public, and that the Supreme Court resolution to allow the FBI to "bug" cars with a GPS Receiver reeked of elitism (if you can't afford to have a locked garage/locked front car gate to your house, you deserve to have your vehicle tampered with), it's the individual's responsibility to secure their location-information as much as it is for developers and OEMs to provide clear tools to disallow location sharing services across apps and the OS.

If you own a smartphone, you should already know how to disable location services (especially as an Ars Technica reader). It's the non-technical public that will be an issue: if the law protects their ignorance over the current state-of-the-art, I could see this bill interfering with application development in the future if additional restrictions are added on top of these before it gets signed into law.

What we need are term limits on our officials. Have a constant rotation of newly elected representatives. That way, you wouldn't have people worried about their career ending early because they dared to vote a way that will make them look back in their re-election ads. And if someone goes off the rails for their constituency, well they'll be out soon enough anyway and replaced by someone else.

I don't think that it's so straightforward. The incoming representatives are going to be inexperienced. They're going to be easy to influence because they don't know what they're doing yet. You can't put a term limit on the lobbyists, so the lobbyists would be the ones who know the most about how the system works.

I think it really comes down to the winner-take-all system we have. Let's say you have a theoretical state where 42% of the voters consistently pick democrats, 38% consistently pick republicans, and 20% consistently pick from a third party. Let's say that there are about 10 representatives. You would expect about 4 democrats, 4 republicans, and 2 from that third party, right? But if these votes are evenly distributed across all of the electoral districts, you get 10 democrats.

I was looking for a bill number (e.g. H.R.3021 or S.947), and found this hasn't yet been introduced.

I was thinking the same thing when I read the article. I don't see anything in the article explicitly stating that the bill hadn't been introduced yet. It would be nice to see this statement made explicitly, and conversely, to always provide the bill number when it's available.

Quote:

Won't this be difficult to enforce inasmuch as govt must have GPS for mandated 911 purposes? Phones likely also broadcast some sort of GPS to govt satellites simply to determine time of day.

I think any reasonable person would expect that GPS data transmitted when a customer dials 911 would be exempted. Time of day can be obtained by the handset both from cells (base stations) and from GPS without a handset transmitting anything back. Tinfoil hat much?

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

The whole point of electing representatives is that they vote on legislation. What you're asking for doesn't exist in any country, except for the occasional referendum on election day.

As for whether or not we should vote on legislation, thats another argument. But I think we'd be hurting more than helping if we put every bill up for popular vote.

Imagine a world where politicians can't be career politicians at all, where voting ballots have no "Straight" option for all Republican or all Democrat, hell where we don't even have the two party system.

I don't necessarily agree with everything you said but I do agree with this. Not only should there be no "Straight ticket" option, but it should be promoted as acceptable (even wise) practice that if you don't have an (informed) opinion about which candidate is better, then don't vote for either.

I'm not promoting ignorance but in general, if you don't know what you're talking about, it's better to just not say anything.

Maybe I'm overly cynical here but my first reaction was this: Are they really working together for the good of the citizens or given the amount of embarrassment politicians are having lately because of technology lately with affairs and whatnot, are they covering their collective asses? It's not unusual for people in positions of power to dally on the side once and again, who would want to be tracked easily? I'm not saying that is the only reason, but sure would be a motivator to play nice.

Much like cap-and-trade, if the value of the GPS data in use is worth more than the cost of the fines and fees to a corporation for sharing that data against the law, they'll continue to do what they do. This act would only hurt individuals writing apps and small businesses.

While I agree that Law Enforcement/Public Safety shouldn't have this info freely available to an unsuspecting public, and that the Supreme Court resolution to allow the FBI to "bug" cars with a GPS Receiver reeked of elitism (if you can't afford to have a locked garage/locked front car gate to your house, you deserve to have your vehicle tampered with), it's the individual's responsibility to secure their location-information as much as it is for developers and OEMs to provide clear tools to disallow location sharing services across apps and the OS.

If you own a smartphone, you should already know how to disable location services (especially as an Ars Technica reader). It's the non-technical public that will be an issue: if the law protects their ignorance over the current state-of-the-art, I could see this bill interfering with application development in the future if additional restrictions are added on top of these before it gets signed into law.

Wait, what? How is this restrictive to application developers? It stops law enforcement from getting to your location data without a warrant, and it makes it illegal to share the location data an app has gathered without user consent. It doesn't say an app can't gather that data for use as a location-based tool, just that you have to get user consent before you share it.

And in regards to securing your information, what this bill is stopping is the use of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act (I double checked, this is exactly what that article was talking about), which doesn't actually get the data from the user at all. It doesn't matter how much you've turned off location-based services; the FBI is (probably - we can't be sure due to it being classified) going to the cell phone companies and requesting "business records" per Section 215. Those records apparently involve exactly what towers your cell phone was connected to, i.e. your location. And they're collecting this in vast swaths of data, not necessarily targeted at individuals.

You wouldn't want a true democracy because it basically equates to an Ochlocracy or "mob rule".

This gets repeated a lot, but there's no empirical evidence for it. It is also naive to think politicians take time to research the issues. The vast majority of time they are either voting what will get them campaign contributions (and the popular vote) or making deals for what other senators/reps are looking to get (which will in turn, get the other reps campaign contributions). Once in a great while they can vote their conscience, and that's what motivates some with a sense of decency. Mob rule! ha! Do you really believe that crap?

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

We now have the technology to be a true democracy, where every individual gets the right to vote on laws and how to solve issues; however, we are stuck with a Republic, or rather the illusion of democracy through representation. I find it funny that people say that democracy is the best form of government besides all the others that have been tried, except that we are no more a democracy than China is a communist country. It is in name only, which can purposely be deceiving. I do find that allowing the majority the right to vote on restricting the freedoms of the minority presents some issues, and it can be ever prevalent with prohibition in what is supposedly meant to be a free country. The mob still rule, though as two management teams who vie for you dollar so that they can shoulder you with debt for their dreams.

We might have the technology to make something like a direct democracy technically feasible, but we definitely don't have the educated populace necessary, and really, we wouldn't want to. Would you like a nationwide bill banning gay marriage to actually be put before the people?

You know, I honestly wonder why citizens in the US can't vote on legislation. I mean, we 'elect' these people to their seats, and they are supposed to represent the citizens of their state/district/town, but the people never get to actually vote on these types of things.....

Isn't that weird? The people this is supposed to protect, don't get a say in the making of a law.....

-Josh

Many of us can at the state level. In many states enough signatures on a petition puts a "referendum" on the next ballot. If this is passed, it becomes law. The state constitution can even be amended this way. State senate can do nothing about it. It's pretty awesome.

I feel like I get more cynical regarding Federal government every year. It's nice to see representatives pushing for bills that actually protect my rights, not rape them. I sure hope this goes through.